Why are you a Theist?

[The Grand Nudger]

I went three decades without reading any "atheist books". Spent a good portion of two of them reading "religious books". Ghosts and goblins, magic and monsters - the stuff makes excellent reading. Even now, the total number of "atheist books" I've read amounts to a whopping 1 - while the volumes of myth would probably fill my entire house.

[pocaracas]

Yeah... that's because you're trapped by the requirement of faith in order to accept a god.
Me, on the other hand, realizing that, somewhere in the distant past, either a god (or gods) DID have direct contact with a few select ignorant people, or those people invented said god(s), have no such baggage.
If it was invented, case closed, atheism is the correct approach.
If there was contact, then I expect equal contact with everyone... however, I see no such thing, so.... people have to resort to faith. But I refuse to resort to faith on such an important matter.
I refuse to accept the word of some other person, who accepted the word of some other person, who accepted the word of some other person, who accepted the word of some other person, who accepted the word of some other person, who... I think you see where this is going...

So god does not contact everyone, you have to seek it out. If _I seek out this non-corporeal entity, hoe do I do that? Which tools do I employ on such endeavor? Like I said earlier, no amount of scientific testing has yet yielded any divine entity.
Through wanting it to be there? and then finding that I become convinced that it is there?
Is this circular reasoning, or am I seeing things?

To seek God, examine your life, reflect on what the meaning of life is, what your nature is, how you have failed God, come to God and humble yourself and listen to God. Come ready to see how you have failed God and where God has a space to show you how your life needs to change. Read the Bible and ask God to reveal God's way to you. Don't read it to disprove it, read it like you are ready to repent of your sins and follow whatever verses the Holy Spirit will direct you towards.

You don't have to decide immediately that you are completely committed to God, just read it with your heart open, aware that you are not as great of a person as you could have been, ready to change your life.

You have to understand, God is very, very angry at you. God will reveal God's nature to you, but you have to be humble and listen. Does not mean you have to accept every Christian belief right off the bat.

God will not reveal God's nature to proud people or people that are just looking to spit in God's face and disprove God. You must come humbly and listen.

See where I bolded what you wrote... You are still wanting me to assume a god is there, before I have any knowledge of it.
I refuse to accept your (or anyone else's) account of a god. So I expect to find out about it from the source, just like the original people must have... unless they made it up, in which case we're left with the default atheist position - all gods are man-made and do not represent reality.

[Angrboda]

Okay, so as listed in the link you provided was a site that lists all of his works. First of all, I will state that just from skimming most of his works in relation to religion, it is easy to understand why Seneca is widely accepted as having authored that quote despite there being no documented source to prove it. His writing greatly alludes to his authorship to that quote.

Irrelevant. And exactly how does one's writing "allude" to one having written something specific. By that light, my own writing "alludes" to my having written it. Are you going to start putting my name after the quote?

This site was actually listed in your Wikiquote link. If one is going to regard true sources, anything Wiki related is not considered an acceptable source by colleges. And for good reason. Also, I highly doubt any respectable author or journalist would dare to source Wiki.

Again irrelevant, as I wasn't the one who claimed that Seneca said this. And in case you hadn't noticed, this is not a paper in a college course. (And I'm hardly respectable, as you'll likely discover.) I didn't "source" anything other than that there is some controversy surrounding authorship of the quote, a controversy that you yourself provided independent confirmation for by providing a source that, by his own words, considers its authorship by Seneca to be "questionable." This is all just tap dancing to avoid facing the fact that you posted a quote that you can't properly source, and instead of simply retracting the quote, you decided to attempt to justify your use of it with bullshit.

However, even that Wiki page you linked did have this to state:

It's difficult to "prove a negative" and declare with certainty that Seneca never wrote these words.

Again irrelevant, since I never claimed "with certainty" that Seneca never wrote this. You, however, did claim with certainty that he did.

But thanks for proving that you're the type of incompetent atheist blowhard that jstrodel suggested you were.

[frz]

Well, as wordy as humans can get life is not that deep. All the titles, all the 50 syllable words which are nothing more than code, humanity invents them to create a false sense of importance, which is nothing more then our denial that we are finite.

Hey, that's what I said, not in the same words but....

[TromboneAtheist]

Okay, so as listed in the link you provided was a site that lists all of his works. First of all, I will state that just from skimming most of his works in relation to religion, it is easy to understand why Seneca is widely accepted as having authored that quote despite there being no documented source to prove it. His writing greatly alludes to his authorship to that quote.

Does it freaking matter at all if Seneca wrote/said that particular quote? The point is that it is true. Just because he may have quoted wrongly does not mean you have to be a complete ass about it. Especially considering all the bullshit Strodel has been saying
Irrelevant. And exactly how does one's writing "allude" to one having written something specific. By that light, my own writing "alludes" to my having written it. Are you going to start putting my name after the quote?

This site was actually listed in your Wikiquote link. If one is going to regard true sources, anything Wiki related is not considered an acceptable source by colleges. And for good reason. Also, I highly doubt any respectable author or journalist would dare to source Wiki.

Again irrelevant, as I wasn't the one who claimed that Seneca said this. And in case you hadn't noticed, this is not a paper in a college course. (And I'm hardly respectable, as you'll likely discover.) I didn't "source" anything other than that there is some controversy surrounding authorship of the quote, a controversy that you yourself provided independent confirmation for by providing a source that, by his own words, considers its authorship by Seneca to be "questionable." This is all just tap dancing to avoid facing the fact that you posted a quote that you can't properly source, and instead of simply retracting the quote, you decided to attempt to justify your use of it with bullshit.

However, even that Wiki page you linked did have this to state:

It's difficult to "prove a negative" and declare with certainty that Seneca never wrote these words.

Again irrelevant, since I never claimed "with certainty" that Seneca never wrote this. You, however, did claim with certainty that he did.

But thanks for proving that you're the type of incompetent atheist blowhard that jstrodel suggested you were.